Archive for the ‘Organization’ Category

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Visual Goals for the New Year

Saturday, January 1st, 2011

Last year I watched a YouTube video (made by my friend Beth Jones) of how to make a vision board. She basically showed how to cut out pictures from magazines to symbolize goals you have for yourself for the new year. She says that people accomplish their goals when they can see what their goals are. So I decided to make a display of my visual goals for the new year.

  1. I want to continue drawing closer to God, yielding to His Spirit moment by moment.
  2. I would like to go on more dates with my husband this year.
  3. I want to stop yelling at my children. I’ve grown a lot in this area, but by the end of the year, I want to be at a point where I never yell whatsoever. Wouldn’t that be cool?
  4. I want to listen to my children more, to understand their heartbeat and deepen their walk with God.
  5. I found a magazine picture that said, “Don’t let your virtual life distract you from the real thing.” I want to live, to really live. My business could easily take over every spare moment of my day, and I don’t want to live a virtual life. I want my life to be real.
  6. I saw another picture in a magazine that had a woman holding a clock. It said, “Instead of racing against the clock, slow down and savor everyday moments.” I want to live in the moment and to enjoy my husband and children, really enjoy them.
  7. I have a picture of a garden because I’d like to spend more time in the garden and make it look prettier, so that we have a peaceful haven just outside our own house.
  8. I have a picture of a family riding bicycles to symbolize the fact that I want to lose 17 pounds. I was my ideal weight last January (and my whole life I’ve been skinny), but somehow turning 40 has changed my body. Or maybe sorrow did it. Regardless, I will exercise more, eat right,  and go on  the 12K marathon in May.
  9. I want to laugh more.
  10. Yes, I have a picture of money. The expenditure of my business this coming year, for vendor tables at conferences,  to powerpoint equipment, to burning my DVD’s and CD’s, all this will cost over $2,000. I must make over this amount just to make ends meet and not have my family damaged financially from my business. I would love, love, love to have a second honeymoon with my darling husband this coming summer. I’d like to go to the Bahamas. Our real honeymoon was a disaster because of the sin of another man, and it doesn’t seem fair that our honeymoon was spoiled by the rapist. I just want my honeymoon back. The first money I make from my business (after tithing to God) will be a trip to the Bahamas! (I might have to put this off until next year, but I included it in my vision board, because I want it to come true so badly.)

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Anatomy Display (Science Learning Center)

Wednesday, September 15th, 2010

anatomy-display

Since my YouTube video clip about organizing educational bins was highly popular, I thought I’d share another example of an educational display that is a science learning center. The bin that I showed you in the video clip was about anatomy, and here was the science learning center that I set up for my children during that unit.

We had several fun books that had clear overlays with each system of the body. I had a skeleton model that I bought for a dollar at a used curriculum sale. The anatomy chart was purchased at a teacher supply store, and it helped the children to learn the different body systems, which they drew, life-sized, of their own bodies traced on butcher paper. The human heart opens up, and you can see the different chambers. This would be good for high school, too, because it was very detailed. I got that at a teacher supply store as well. Let’s see, oh, yeah, we also had a see-through model of the systems of the body. That was kind of frustrating, actually, even though the kids loved it, because it was hard to stuff all the body parts back inside. Anyway, I hope this display is helpful to you as you homeschool your own children and get them excited about learning a specific subject.

If you would like more information on organizing your house to have more joy as you homeschool (and more fun!) feel free to get Organizing for a Fun Homeschool, two one-hour, jam-packed video sessions giving you a tour of my home and how I do things with my children. Many homeschooling mothers have come over to my house over the years, and all of them have taken lots of notes and asked lots of questions. I’ve answered everything in these videos.

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Organizing Your Homeschool

Monday, August 30th, 2010

Organizing your homeschool does not have to be difficult. In this video clip, I show you how to organize educational bins for unit studies in homeschooling:

As you can see if you look upwards, a lot of storage space can be found above your head. Look at the enormous amount of stuff that I’m storing above my head. It doesn’t affect any floor space. As you can see, it’s by years–it’s what we did for each homeschool year–and we went through the history of the whole world in six years. (We also covered all the sciences within those years.)

organizing-your-homeschoolFor example, in year 2 we studied human anatomy for a full year, so let me take that down real quick… When we did human anatomy, I just threw the things into this bin. I collected things from yard sales and used curriculum sales. You can get all kids of fun stuff. Here is a model of the lungs that we did, and the model of the human arm. We have X-rays of different parts of the human body; you can put the whole body together like a puzzle. Here are the skeletons of animals, and the bones like the femur are called the same thing in animals and humans. (So once you learn the bones of the human body, you can find and label animal skeletons, too!)

I have games about the human body, and books like Blood and Guts, which have lots of fun experiments about the human body. (It does contain evolution.) I also have coloring books of the human body, and diagrams to color for younger children. You also see I have different models, like the human heart.

So all of this is stored in this bin. That’s how I store things for different unit studies, so that the second time I teach something, it is so easy compared to the first time. As you make the different hands-on items for science or history, you can throw them into the bin. By the time you get to that time period in history, surprise, surprise! You open it up and go, “Wow! Look at all the stuff I have for the Revolutionary War!”

This is a small sample of my 2-hour video workshop, Organizing for a Fun Homeschool, where I show you every room in my house, and how I organize it for fun homeschooling.

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How to Make an Educational Display

Tuesday, August 24th, 2010

educational-display

When studying a particular theme for a unit study, an educational display can spark interest in that study. It is a learning center and can be located anywhere in your house. My favorite place to put the display is on a low bookshelf. I like to include books about the topic, including picture books.

I also include other items such as games, puppets, magnifying glasses, models, puzzles, small plastic insects, or any other item that would make children want to study that subject on their own. This way your child is studying and learning whenever you are not there. This can enhance and deepen their learning.

For example, they might want to read a book that you don’t have time to read aloud to them. Or they can study star charts more closely, or reread a book already read. Or they can browse the insect identification book and find out what that weird insect was that you found on your doorstep last week. Of all the items in the display, the extra books are especially helpful. You can even make a display with only books, propping some up to generate interest.

If you want to learn more about setting up your house for learning, you will love my 2-hour video workshop Organizing for a Fun Homeschool, where I show you how I organize my  house for fun learning.

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